Charitable

Shared tags library for multiple monitors using AwesomeWM.

Usage

local charitable = require("charitable")

-- Create tags and taglist
local taglist_buttons = gears.table.join(
    awful.button({ }, 1, function(t) charitable.select_tag(t, awful.screen.focused()) end),

    awful.button({ }, 3, function(t) charitable.toggle_tag(t, awful.screen.focused()) end)
)

local tags = charitable.create_tags(
   { "1", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9" },
   {
      awful.layout.layouts[1],
      awful.layout.layouts[1],
      awful.layout.layouts[1],
      awful.layout.layouts[1],
      awful.layout.layouts[1],
      awful.layout.layouts[1],
      awful.layout.layouts[1],
      awful.layout.layouts[1],
      awful.layout.layouts[1],
   }
)

awful.screen.connect_for_each_screen(function(s)
    -- Show an unselected tag when a screen is connected
    for i = 1, #tags do
         if not tags[i].selected then
             tags[i].screen = s
             tags[i]:view_only()
             break
         end
    end

    s.mytaglist = awful.widget.taglist({
       screen = s,
       filter  = awful.widget.taglist.filter.all,
       buttons = taglist_buttons,
       source = function(screen, args) return tags end,
    })

    -- ...
end

-- Keys setup
for i = 1, 9 do
    globalkeys = gears.table.join(globalkeys,
        -- View tag only.
        awful.key({ modkey }, "#" .. i + 9,
                  function () charitable.select_tag(tags[i], awful.screen.focused()) end,
                  {description = "view tag #"..i, group = "tag"}),
        -- Toggle tag display.
        awful.key({ modkey, "Control" }, "#" .. i + 9,
                  function () charitable.toggle_tag(tags[i], awful.screen.focused()) end,
                  {description = "toggle tag #" .. i, group = "tag"}),
        -- Move client to tag.
        awful.key({ modkey, "Shift" }, "#" .. i + 9,
                  function ()
                      if client.focus then
                          local tag = tags[i]
                          if tag then
                              client.focus:move_to_tag(tag)
                          end
                     end
                  end,
                  {description = "move focused client to tag #"..i, group = "tag"}),
        -- Toggle tag on focused client.
        awful.key({ modkey, "Control", "Shift" }, "#" .. i + 9,
                  function ()
                      if client.focus then
                          local tag = tags[i]
                          if tag then
                              client.focus:toggle_tag(tag)
                          end
                      end
                  end,
                  {description = "toggle focused client on tag #" .. i, group = "tag"})
    )
end

-- ensure that removing screens doesn't kill tags
tag.connect_signal("request::screen", function(t)
    t.selected = false
    for s in screen do
        if s ~= t.screen then
            t.screen = s
            return
        end
    end
end)

-- work around bugs in awesome 4.0 through 4.3+
-- see https://github.com/awesomeWM/awesome/issues/2780
awful.tag.history.restore = function() end

Description

Typical AwesomeWM configuration implies that tags are per screen. This library allows AwesomeWM to instead have tags that are shared across all connected screens. This is how XMonad works by default.

Quick Reference

• charitable.create_tags replaces awful.tag.new
• charitable.select_tag replaces t:view_only()
• charitable.toggle_tag replaces awful.tag.viewtoggle
• charitable.tag_move is new
• charitable.swap_screen is new

History

This was originally implemented by Benjamin Kober, and later forked and updated by Alexey Solodkiy. This version has been updated to support AwesomeWM 4.x, and have a better name.